Jobs & Careers >
Office Politics
Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedIs it a good idea to work with your spouse?
Results so far:
| Yes | 33% | 165 votes | Total: 496 votes | |
| No | 67% | 331 votes |
Yes
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesWhile I have to agree that working with one's spouse can be an enormous challenge, I believe that it is simultaneously an extremely fulfilling, wholesome, and rewarding experience.
I have often reflected on the irony of how two people who have chosen to dedicate their lives to each other; to love and cherish one another for all time, promptly spend most of their waking time apart. If you cannot maintain a compatible work relationship with your spouse how do you expect to run a healthy and functional marriage?
Marriage requires an enormous amount of active cultivation and effort. More often than not however, couples become complacent and tend to neglect their marital relationship due to the pressures and stresses concomitant with an overwhelming work load. This is compounded in a relationship where both spouses work or actively participate in a full-time career. How often have you found yourself coming home from work and simply vegetating in front of the television or, even more common, how many perfectly functional marriages eventually deteriorate into a resentful breeding ground for petty bickering over who does more household chores and who has a more stressful work day? Sound familiar?
Since time immemorial couples have pulled together creating a functional homogeonous unit that pools resources, strengths and skills in order to most effectively nurture and protect the family. If we are to consider this in a more contemporary light, today's workday is no longer about gathering resources in order to survive but is spent actively striving towards the goals and aspirations one has set for oneself and one's spouse. With this in mind, it makes the most sense to 'partner' up with one's spouse/lifetime partner and work together towards these goals and aspirations. Knowing that you both have the same ultimate 'end product' in mind should allow you both to step up to the hiccups and challenges that are inevitable in any business endeavor with the solidarity of a team. Should there be disagreements, which are undoubtable, managing them in the work environment will consolidate and mirror how arguments and disagreements are dealt with in the home environment.
A working relationship of any kind, whether it be business, marriage, friendship or even familial requires a few key elements in order for it to be a balanced and healthy association. Respect for your partner's ideas, space, priorities, and beliefs (which may often vary from your own) is of vital importance in maintaining both a successful work relationship and a marriage.
One often, without question, affords the courtesies of tolerance, patience and respect to unfamiliar work colleagues; surely the same courtesies can just as easily be extended to one's life partner. If one is able to communicate difference of opinion and discuss important matters objectively, without the fiercely competitive and emotive edge that so often accompanies marital communication, I do not see why an extraordinary work relationship between spouses cannot flourish.
Remember that your spouse is not your sibling, treat them accordingly and with love, determination and hard work on your side I simply do not see a better recipe for success.
Learn more about this author, Alice Grey.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
No
I write from experience on this subject. I learned way too much about my spouse working side by side. In the beginning, it was nice spending both day and night with the person I chose to love. Back then, I believed it would be great. It was not. After a few years and shortly before the break-up, we fought about everything. Living and working together gave us so much ammunition to throw at each other it got ugly. To make matters worse, we owned the business so many of our battles were in the publics eye and never in the privacy of our home. To be honest, when you spend 24/7 with someone you have no privacy.
We began disagreeing on everything because we are different people. They say opposites attract and as a couple it worked. In the workplace, it did not. As co-workers the familiarity couples share gave way to lots of honesty. The kind of honest reflection that can hurt, and did hurt. Where-as some co-workers may just keep quiet, spouses rarely do. In the end, the same reasons we were attracted to each other when we met, began tearing us apart. We are both very honest people.
For us, our differences controlled our finances. This caused a lot of grief when placing blame for financial losses. Now, I know it's not right to place blame. However, when you disagree on something and that something causes the loss of thousands of dollars, a lot more than honest reflection flies. As I said earlier, it got ugly. Familiarity definitely breeds contempt.
Although we still share the business, we no longer share a life together. On some days when looking back, I feel a slight sadness over our breakup. I wonder if we never worked together would we have made it. I feel when you live and work with someone, you see a part of them you may not want to see. The same goes for them as I'll admit to a few moments of outward hostility.
We now have separated work schedules so not to work at the same time. Some of the battles are still there, however they do not affect the quality of our lives. We get along fairly well for ex's that work together. Our transition from loving partners to business partners was hard and took a couple years to adjust.
I am a think-aholic and mostly do the paper-work and business planning. My Ex is a work-aholic who is the heart and soul of our business. Without hard work our business would not be such a success. Without my direction, the same is true. Life is funny like that. We started out as friends, became lovers and then co-workers. Twenty-five years later we have become each other's best friend all over again. I'm happy we have finally found a ground to share, yet as I said, I still wonder what would have happened if we had never worked together.
I believe we learned too much about each other. There was little to share about our days as we already knew what was happening in each others day. Life became mundane. Working with a spouse made me feel as I was always working. Work occupied 99 percent of our conversations. Our friends from work were the same people. In some ways, it stunted our growth as individuals. For some, working with a spouse may be a good thing. For us, it was not.
Learn more about this author, Cyn Lee.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
